TMone offers sales support for DRTV

Not every company is willing to put its money where its mouth is, but that's exactly what TMone is doing. Recently, the telesales and database marking firm announced that it will offer sales support to Direct Response TV marketers on a pay-per-sale basis, with both quality and effort stipulations.

The new service is being launched after a successful DRTV trial campaign for Packet8 VOIP from 8x8 Inc. in conjunction with Tiger Direct. The campaign launched in Nov. 2005.

"We were able to make significant close rate improvements on a pure pay-per-sale basis while providing an economically predictable solution for our client," said TMone President and CEO Anthony Marlowe.

TMone, Iowa City, IA, has had success with outbound customer acquisition services for the telecommunications and financial services industries, with a special niche in Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). A separate database marketing arm, which accounts for about 30 percent of the company's revenues, allows TMone to integrate contact center marketing campaigns with strategic database marketing.

The goal of the outboard marketing efforts isn't just to acquire new customers, but to build brand awareness and maximize the possibility of future business. Targeted databases are developed and enhanced for each client and then fully integrated to deliver information to prospects using multiple types of supporting media. This has allowed TMone to achieve superior penetration in target markets. "We thought if we can do this for outbound telemarketing customers, why can't we do it for inbound?" Mr. Marlowe said.

Mr. Marlowe believes TMone is the first company to offer a pure pay-per-sale service, particularly one with the level of quality assurance that TMone offers. Clients pay a flat per sale rate on each sale and upsell, as long as TMone meets certain mutually agreed upon quality matrices, such as handling time, abandoned calls and average second answered.

How is TMone able to offer such a service? Mr. Marlowe ascribes it to the in-depth training operators receive on each and every product.

"We're able to beat conversion rates that marketers might be getting from other inbound call centers by about 10-20 percent, so if someone who comes to us is currently paying aggregate costs of $15 per sale, we're able to do it for around $12.50," he said.

While the pay-per-sale service might not be suitable for all products or services, Mr. Marlowe feels it is an exciting new development in the DRTV field. "Our service gives DRTV marketers the comfort of knowing that they're maximizing opportunity but without compromising quality."